Life Goes On
by The Black Sluggard
Summary: If love is often a selfish emotion, then loving unconditionally can be the most selfish thing of all. Slash, Ryan/Esposito. Companion to "Quality of Life".


It never really crossed his mind until they started having lunch in the hospital cafeteria together. Seeing Javier sitting up and engaging with the world again―_living _again―the prospect of recovery finally felt like a real, tangible thing. It was easier every day for Kevin to imagine his partner reentering the world, reentering his life...

Even if it also became easier to see how just how much his illness had changed him.

It was much more than just the coldness of his hands and the pallor undercutting the dark tone of his skin. It was in the guarded shadows in his eyes, the self-conscious tension that worked its way into his shoulders as he watched the others around them. There was something still and intense in the attention. _Predatory_. Kevin had hated the word the moment it slithered through is brain, but it had and it wasn't inaccurate. Then Kevin had managed to say something―God, he didn't even remember what it was―that brought Javier's eyes back to him, brought a smile that cleared away some of those shadows. Despite the changes it had been so painfully, wonderfully, unmistakably obvious that it still was _Javier _in there that he couldn't imagine how anyone could ever doubt it.

Still Javier―still _alive _no matter what anyone said. Still here. Still _his_. Still beautiful.

Kevin had been a little shocked at himself that first time he thought it. Not because the thought had never occurred to him (when they first started working together, Kevin had found himself thinking about it a lot and in detail). Not because Kevin had thought he was over it (it was useless to try and kid himself that he'd ever in his life managed to "get over" anybody). It wasn't that it was too soon after Jenny (though it _was_, and the issues that had driven them apart made the attraction seem almost spiteful). It wasn't even because of Javier's condition (thoughts about that _would _come later, of course, he was only human). His best friend had just had his whole life ripped apart. Rebound or not, it was absolutely the wrong time for that old crush to come surging back up from the depths of his unconscious.

Still, he only thought once―and even then only briefly―that the smartest thing might have been to take a step back, to get some distance before he got too involved. Sunk himself in too deep. Javier was on his way back, things were righting themselves again, and his partner didn't need him to hold on quite so tightly. That thought had died quickly though, wiped away by his resolve to be there for his partner, however Javier needed him to be. That was far more important, and Kevin told himself he could ignore his own feelings. That he had done a fine enough job of it before.

He had honestly believed both of those things were true.

* * *

><p>Javier was usually quiet when he came back from his sessions with Waters, but some days the silence was heavier than others.<p>

Today, that weight was almost visible, and Kevin noticed the edge on the greeting his partner dragged out for him, forced, painful and a little desperate. He had been waiting in Javier's room for fifteen minutes, but he shuffled off to grab something from a vending machine. Javier wouldn't ask him to leave, but that didn't mean he wanted Kevin there when he broke down.

He knew his partner had developed a taste for salt and sweet and protein. There was a machine two floors down that usually had PayDay bars. He planned a complicated route past it, calculating in his head. He could stretch that out to...six minutes? More if he took the stairs.

It wouldn't take that long for Javier to pull himself together.

And when Kevin returned, he knew, there would be no telltale redness in Javier's eyes or on his cheeks, no unevenness to his breath. There would be no evidence at all on his bloodless face once the tears were wiped away.

* * *

><p>It was naive in hindsight, but at the time the eviction felt like it had come out of nowhere.<p>

It was ignorant, and cowardly, and it was freaking _illegal_, and the nerve of the guy to pull that sort of shit―especially with a cop, with _Javier_―had made him absolutely livid. Kevin had been more than ready to put his full energy into fighting it, but Javier's pained acceptance of it had taken the wind out of his sails. He had barely been out of the hospital a _week._ Seeing his partner give in with such bitter resignation hurt more than Kevin could have expressed.

Over the next week, as they searched, the offer rested unvoiced and unconsidered in the back of his mind. In his heart he had _known_ it was a bad idea for both of them. But as the time ran short he'd felt his resolve slipping like sand down the neck of an hourglass, his control over the words thinning until they finally slipped out on their own.

Kevin had watched Javier's reluctance anxiously, precariously balanced between hurt and the contradictory hope that he would say no. He had been uncertain, when he received his answer, whether the tentative 'yes' was victory or defeat.

* * *

><p>As Javier settled in, Kevin found that the subtler changes became more pronounced with proximity.<p>

Some of the most painful were often the most minor, simple quirks whose importance was exaggerated by his partner's self-awareness of them. Like the morning Kevin had taken a swallow from the wrong mug, gagging on the taste of salt mixed in with the sugar and coffee, odd and unexpected. Unpleasant, admittedly, but in no way deserving of the embarrassment too easily read in his partner's face.

Kevin never said anything about it―talking would only imply it was something _worth_ talking about. Truly important things spoke well enough for themselves. And the next morning, when the salt carton mysteriously found a new spot next to the sugar canister on the counter, he'd caught the faint smile that twitched briefly at the corner of Javier's mouth.

The insomnia was another sore spot, Kevin knew.

No matter how often he assured his partner that he was a very sound sleeper, Javier always worried about disturbing him at night. The first few nights, Kevin _had_ been unable to sleep. Listening in the silence, he kept imagining his partner out on the couch, awake but motionless, waiting uselessly for sleep to come―or for morning, whichever came first. It had been a relief when, finally, things had relaxed. It wasn't something that was ever talked about, but the soft sounds of his partner's nocturnal activities were all Kevin needed to know that, at the very least, Javier wasn't suffering for his benefit.

Javier's late walks had unnerved him when the habit first developed. Later, those nights were merely disappointing. Because, when he did wake sometimes at night, he found he missed the sounds of movement that would carry through the still quiet of the apartment―signs of life that were oddly comforting.

The things that weren't so minor, Kevin had mostly been prepared for.

Many post-vitals lost autonomic control of their breathing soon after their hearts had stopped. Every breath became a conscious act, a habit that some even struggled to relearn―though, without an actual _need_ for air, it was a cosmetic issue more than anything else.

In Javier, those reflexes were still present, but they were frustratingly erratic and seemed to become more so over time. For now, his breathing generally took care of itself, even if the rhythms were irregular, paced with drawn out pauses. Increasingly however, when he was relaxed or when he became distracted it stopped entirely―sometimes for as long as three minutes before he would notice. Javier had once admitted, albeit reluctantly, that he occasionally felt a vestigial moment of panic when he realized the lapse.

Thirty years chained to the biological imperative to breathe were difficult to dismiss.

Coming at visitor's hours, Kevin had never had the opportunity to see Javier asleep while he was in the hospital. Even after Javier moved in, his inconsistent habits meant Kevin hardly ever saw it. But one afternoon, during that first week, Kevin had come home to find Javier sacked out on the couch. It was a rare and unusual sight and, with a touch of self-reproach, Kevin found himself giving in to an uncharacteristic moment of voyeurism.

Motionless in sleep, chest absent the natural rhythm, Javier was alarmingly still. Devoid of movement and consciousness and everything else that usually defined "life", it struck Kevin oddly and suddenly that he should have looked like a corpse. He _should_ have, but he didn't. Kevin had spent the better part of five minutes struggling to put a name to it, trying to puzzle out the elusive detail, the subtle yet definitive difference that unconsciously marked his partner as a _person_ rather than an _object_...

And he still hadn't figured it out when his partner finally stirred. Javier came to with a self-conscious frown, and for a moment Kevin was worried the staring might upset him. At Kevin's guilty blush, however, the expression had smoothed away, and any discomfort felt over the bizarre incident was swiftly put behind them.

* * *

><p>The rat really should have bothered him more than it did.<p>

Kevin thought part of that was the difficulty he had even wrapping his head around the idea. Evidence told him one thing, but it seemed impossible to reconcile with the image he held of his partner. He had tried to picture it several times since. Tried to imagine Javier prying the trap open, tried to imagine the action of teeth and fingers on meat and fur and bone and tail. It always fell apart into something abstract and unreal. He just couldn't quite manage it.

But the expression in his partner's eyes that morning had been very real. The way Javier wouldn't look at him, an emotion Kevin couldn't even name flickering deep behind his dark eyes in shades of panic and self-disgust.

It had happened. Kevin _knew _that it had happened. That reality didn't seem to care whether he could fathom it or not.

* * *

><p>Once Javier returned to work, there were times when it felt like nothing had changed at all.<p>

Only, Kevin noticed that Javier was a lot more careful when apprehending their suspects these days. There was a part him that roused itself during the chase―a savage, misshapen part that Kevin never liked to admit that he recognized. Every time he saw it, he was forced up against the startling realization that Javier's hard won self-control was all that kept his new instincts from turning a collar into a _kill_.

And the solidity of that restraint was never so marked as when Kevin saw it abandoned.

The threat of teeth descending toward his throat held a unique, penetrating terror. Terror that had nothing to do with the fear of infection and _everything_ to do with ancient parts of the brain that responded very strongly to the idea of being eaten. It was urgent and primitive, unmatched in its intensity by any fear Kevin could imagine―even the cold fingers that were already there. The grip was firm and unshakeable, and it wouldn't have taken much more of a squeeze to cut off his air completely. Fortunately―or unfortunately―suffocation didn't enter into the equation.

Whatever intelligence was left directing those hands had only one thing in mind.

The distance had closed to mere inches by the time Javier caught up. His partner quickly had the junkie in a fierce hold which Kevin would have called a headlock if Javier hadn't wedged his forearm tightly between the suspect's jaws, neutralizing the threat of exposure. His partner's lips were peeled back from his teeth in an expression Kevin hadn't seen since onset―an expression that was all hunger and rage, mirrored perfectly in the face of the twisting, animal thing he'd dragged off of Kevin's chest.

Kevin wasted several moments catching his breath, and in the silence in between each one he could hear the sounds of the struggle ringing through the empty spaces of the garage. Indistinct noises, distorted by echoes that rendered them almost inhuman.

The whole encounter left him feeling wobbly and ungrounded―a feeling he couldn't immediately shake.

Afterward, Javier reluctantly allowed an EMT to apply a styptic to stem the lazy flow of serum weeping from the cut on his forehead, showing no more patience for first-aid now than he had before his illness. The continuity struck Kevin sharply, painful and reassuring at the same time. He caught his partner staring at him over the man's shoulder, recognizing instantly the emotion that flashed in his eyes―the desperate check, the _you're-okay-I'm-okay _that followed what they both knew had been a close call―and Kevin felt tension loosen in his chest he hadn't even realized was there.

As harrying as the bust itself had been, it also carried more than its fair share of collateral emotional fallout.

Short of lethality, there was no such thing as "excessive force" with post-vitals―and if the possibility existed that they still carried the disease, very little was off the table. Accountability was muddy, defined case-by-case by the appropriateness of its application. Things had to be documented. Justified. Kevin knew the broken wrist more than likely wouldn't be a problem, but he also knew they would be required to explain the bite wound on the suspect's upper arm.

Kevin's heart bled for his partner, for the shame and embarrassment he knew Javier would feel having to write that down in his report.

* * *

><p>There were a dozen other incidents in his memory. Small things, mostly, easily forgiven but which added up to an uneasy whole. Kevin thought it should have made the feelings he had for his partner easier to ignore. Unfortunately, his subconscious was prepared to be distressingly accommodating of the circumstances.<p>

And when his fantasies shifted, when they began to include cold lips and white teeth, Kevin knew he was completely screwed.

* * *

><p>When Javier was in the hospital, Kevin had been forced to accept the possibility that his partner might never recover. And that, if he did, the recovery might be incomplete. It wasn't something he'd allowed himself to think about often, but the knowledge had been there in the back of his mind. A practical footnote to the hope he'd clutched so tightly it had begun to bruise―a grip released only when Javier had been.<p>

Months later, the fear that crept up on him when he felt Javier beginning to withdraw was far worse than anything Kevin had felt in the beginning―horror magnified because he'd allowed himself to believe the danger was past. When the idea first crawled in through the back door of his mind, Kevin couldn't help but regard the thought itself as a betrayal. He'd tried desperately not to think it again, but the signs in front of him were difficult to ignore. Javier was too still, too quiet, the shadows thick and dark behind eyes that slid away from contact.

Regression...happened. Nowhere near as often as most people believed, but it did. Kevin knew this, intellectually, in a distant statistical way, but it wasn't something he'd ever let himself consider.

That he was entertaining that dreaded possibility _now_...

Kevin considered it, but he couldn't make himself _believe_ it. Every time he took the time to weigh the details honestly he was interrupted by a childish, hurting part of himself screaming that it just wasn't possible. That it wasn't _fair_ to lose Javier again when he'd only just gotten him back. Kevin didn't know, if the worst were actually happening, if he could even be trusted to allow himself to see it.

He trusted Javier with his life.

Kevin couldn't imagine that ever changing. And the thought mocked darkly at the back of his mind that he'd hold on to that trust even as his partner's teeth tore into his throat...

* * *

><p>Over the course of the next two weeks things drew out with an agonizing a tension, and Kevin knew that eventually something had to give. He just wished he might have some warning of <em>what<em>.

When the dam finally broke, there was a split second when he feared that Javier had changed too much,that he'd read things wrong. That his last, desperate push forward would be the one that drove his partner away. But the vulnerable terror that Kevin had seen flash through Javier's eyes when his partner's hand closed around his wrist had been so shy, so human and _familiar_, that he'd just had to take the chance.

For a few seconds, Kevin didn't think _his _heart was beating either. Then he'd felt the scrape of teeth against his bottom lip, a cool tongue licking into his mouth, and everything began to collapse in the best possible way. The relief hit him so hard it threatened to drag him off his feet. And when they finally broke from the kiss, he had to bury his face against his partner's shoulder―just for a moment, just in case―because before he managed to catch his breath, Kevin had honest to God thought he might cry...

Though, their first time was not at all how Kevin had pictured it would be.

As often as he'd imagined the gentle play of teeth over his jugular, there was something very different about the immediate reality―especially when he could feel Javier's control beginning to bleed around the edges. That in itself wasn't unexpected, but what Kevin had been less prepared for was his own reaction to it. Because there was something exciting in the electric tension trembling in his partner's body; a hot thrill that ran through him at at each peculiar shudder, at the odd, soft, grunting sighs he doubted Javier even knew he was making.

And each time he felt that slip, Kevin knew it slipped a little further.

In the back of his mind, he knew it was wrong to feel that way at Javier's faltering grip on himself, but the threat of what might happen if it came completely undone only sharpened his arousal. There should have been nothing attractive in that fear, nothing appealing in the ferocious, hungry thing that lived behind his partner's careful control. Kevin _knew_ that it was wrong, but neither shame nor self preservation seemed sufficient motivation for him to stop.

And when Javier's guttural plea brought everything screaming to a halt, Kevin thought that his partner saw it too. That it had gone too far. That it wouldn't happen. _Couldn't_ happen...

The compromise they made wasn't something he ever could have imagined himself comfortable with, but if that security was what Javier felt he needed, how could Kevin possibly deny him? And it didn't seem quite fair to either one of them, but Kevin had been faced with life's unfairness from the moment Javier had fallen ill. In this way they could each have what they wanted and still forgive themselves afterward.

It was enough. Kevin made peace with that, and he let the rest go...

* * *

><p>After, Kevin met his partner's eyes. There were still shadows living there―shamed and contrite, even as Javier dragged his tongue over the lightly bleeding mark bitten into Kevin's skin. He rested his head on his partner's shoulder. He could feel the warmth of his own body still clinging to the flesh beneath his cheek.<p>

Kevin offered his partner a soft smile.

The wound stung, but his own guilt stung sharper. Guilt for everything Javier had been through to bring them here. For everything he had suffered and the things he'd lost that he could never, ever regain. Guilt for loving parts of Javier of which he knew in his soul his partner was ashamed. Guilt, because while Kevin would undo it all if he could in a heartbeat, if it lost him _this_ it could never be done without a selfish stab of regret.

But it was _Javier_―alive and solid beneath him. Beautiful, even in his corruption.

Javier, finally _his_. And that was all that mattered.


End file.
